


act two: pondwater

by pegaeae



Series: the life, the lyna, the legend [11]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 21:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17087948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pegaeae/pseuds/pegaeae
Summary: chug, chug, chug, chug, chug!





	act two: pondwater

later, when it’s quiet, lyna asks him how it feels, and he doesn’t know how to honestly answer her, how to put into words the voices he hears constantly, a crowd of mentors surrounding him and whispering suggestions, knowledge, griefs, to him. but lyna looks at him with such earnestness–sitting forward in what once was dorian’s chair, so small that it cups her like a baby bird in a nest, her voice hoarse and her eyes wet with the sheer emotion of wanting, needing, to know something more about their people, about the ancestors and the culture she’d dedicated her life to.

he hasn’t told her about what he’s learned, about what solas told him. about what the minds in the well said to him, or what he learned from mythal’s sharp, golden eyes. and maybe that is wrong of him but it was hard enough for him to take in, and he is like water, flowing, bending, able to take and understand and change, continue on.

lyna is like the earth. she is steady and reliable, strong and unmovable. he doesn’t know what it’d do to her to know that what she’d been brought up to believe, that the gods she loved and prayed to, were not gods at all, but fickle and arrogant beings that enslaved their people. he doesn’t know what it’d do to her to know that the markings she wears so proudly are not what she believes them to be.

and sylaise’s vallaslin is etched deeply into her skin, the ink and her eyes reflecting the warm firelight as she gazes at him, yearning for him to say something. he thinks of his mother when he looks at her and his stomach twists and clenches with fear, with the reminder of what solas plans to do, and he cannot bear to lose his mother, to lose lyna, even as the gathering of spirits in his veins whisper to him that he will be gone too.

so he says, “i wish it had been velanna or merrill who had taken it. i feel sometimes like morrigan was right, in a way–that i don’t know enough, can’t interpret what they’re saying.” lyna extends a hand to him and he reaches out and grasps it gratefully, an anchor to the here, the now. “but i won’t say that i regret it. it is like…” a smile, unbidden, curls at the edges of his mouth “it is like when you and solas were arguing over who was better suited to teach me to read elvish. like there is a conclave of mentors constantly fighting over who gets to and how to impart knowledge, but they’re part of me. and any question i have–they have an answer for me. it’s like dorian’s library of knowledge, but so much vaster, condensed and placed inside me–but i know i’m never alone. i can always feel them, and there are too many for me to name, to even count.”

his hand tightens around hers and he leans closer, voice thick and choked as he says, “it feels like belonging, lyna,” and the tears spill down his cheeks as he begins to sob.


End file.
